Talk:Guardian (Origins)
If Keeper (Specialization) becomes merged, this should be merged too. That's a stupid idea. The original Guardian page is on a character named Guardian. They have nothing to do with each other and so shouldn't be joined. ---- Tanking This specialization is definately a tanker spec as far as in role playing. But if you spec your tank the more effective way (with extremely high dex, and relatively low con), then the first three talents are severely hampered. Basing it off of constitution looks great for your average tank. But when I played with alistair as a tank on my team (why wouldn't you? unless its the Warden), I always put 2 in dex and 1 in str. It took awhile for him to wear the good armor or use the good weapons/shields, but it only really mattered for weapons, because nobody could hit him mid game (except for high level bosses, but then it was low damage anyway thanks to heavy armor). So on the surface, and with a "traditional" tank, yes, this is a great tank spec. But for the advanced players who know what they're doing, I say this spec is not worth it until the last talent. And on that talent, if you have a dex tank wearing heavy armor, with the rest of the party being ranged, that could lead to some easy fights (even for the stronger mobs). Damage dealers at range hitting enemies that can't get to you and are thus forced to either keep trying (and mostly failing), or face an attacker who can't be hit. Theoretically sound, wonder how well it really works though. Oh well, I don't have the DLC, so I can't test it. Would love to have some first hand experience opinions though. How the heck do you give this speciality to Alistair? It's Awakening only and he's not in Awakening as a playable character, or is he secret? AbsolutGrndZer0 (talk) 20:07, September 4, 2010 (UTC) This is not only for tankers. It should work well on Oghren, I think, considering new two handed weapon multiple hit skills. I agree with the first poster. The developers have no clue how their own game works sometimes. In my very first playthrough (and nightmare at that) of Origins, my grey warden tank was built mostly on constitution and not dexterity. To make a long story short, it wasn't easy completing the game like this. Later on when I played through a second Origins game with a rogue, and I was amazed to see how smoothly everything went with Alistair tanking and set toward dexterity (nothing further toward constitution). In shorty, dexterity is the better tanking stat, but probably not the obvious one (all associated abilities aside). I also agree with the last poster. I think this specialization is more suited to a non-tank warrior in the party like Oghren. Your tank should always be taunting and using threaten. So their is no reason any other character should be getting hit (at least not very long). In fact, going with the Reaver specialization lets you pick up frightning apperance; which makes taunt more effective. From a tank perspective, Guardian would only be good for controlling AoE damage or other damage you can't stop from hitting your party members. But both of these examples are extreamely situational and don't happen often. And typically, a healer can heal fine enough in those rough situations. However, if you were to give the specialization to a non-tank like Oghren, I could see it being put to slightly better use. Going with the mentality that the tank is going to be taking the brunt of the party's damage, the non-tank could supplement the tank with these Guardian-specialization buffs. But the trade off? Your going to be severly limiting that non-tank's damage output. Aside from the specialization reprocussions (because you could get something else other than Guardian), your probably going to invest some points toward constitution to make it more effective. Whether or not this set up could replace a healer is an intresting question I think. I doubt it will though. In conclusion: This specialization is almost worthless. It just doesn't help the tank as effectively as other specializations. When properly tanking, the npcs will be hitting your tank, not your party members! This specialization is further burdened by the necessity of the constitution stat when dexterity is the better option for tanking. Lastly, the only hope for this specialization is for it to be used by a non-tanking warrior. But the obvious downside would be a severe drop in damage output (and/or possibly crowd control, depending on stats or other specializations). -- (talk) 21:28, March 2, 2011 (UTC) For Ohgren, assuming you keep him using a 2-handed weapon, the alternatives to this are either Champion, Templar or Berserker (Spirit Warrior/Reaver seems an obvious choice due to Spirit Warrior's damage buffs and Reaver's nice AOE damage sustainable, buffed by Spirit Warrior's +spirit damage buffs). Champion adds no DPS benefit, or any other truly impactful benefits, other than an AOE stun (which is rather worthless, as the amount of AOE attacks in Awakening that can be used to slaughter groups of enemies quickly is staggering, there should be no need for an AOE stun). Berserker's "damage benefits" are laughable at best (8 in Berserk when you're already doing several hundred? 0.5 damage per stamina spent with the 4th talent? Lawl). Certainly not worth the 4 point investment. Templar is somewhat viable since the AOE stun attack stuns and deals some damage, with some other nice utility (AOE dispel, Mental Resistance to help thwart off those pesky disabling spells), but unless you pump a lot of Willpower to help the damage of the 4th talent, is probably not entirely worth it. If you do go Spirit Warrior, pumping some Willpower might actually be somewhat viable, since Spirit Warrior also has an AOE based on Willpower. However, with the amount of incredibly powerful AOE abilities available to a 2 handed warrior, there doesn't seem to be much point in grabbing a couple more that are based off a stat that said warrior doesn't really need.-- (talk) 02:57, June 28, 2011 (UTC)